Which IFC class should I use?

Nigel

i was searching the 'Which IFC class should I use?' page on the BlenderBIM website for an IFC class this morning, it got me thinking how useful it would be to do this search inside BlenderBIM IFC Class assignment menu. I guess I'm not the first to think about this

Coen

Isn't it more useful to search for the class you need in the BuildingSmart documentation? They give very precise definitions of all the IFC classes.

For example an IfcWall

The wall represents a vertical construction that bounds or subdivides spaces. Wall are usually vertical, or nearly vertical, planar elements, often designed to bear structural loads. A wall is however not required to be load bearing.

I think when trying to do this in BlenderBIM the UI gets too crowded.

Moult

I agree that right now it's a bit crowded. Perhaps in the future we can come up with an elegant UX for this, but not now.

Nigel

or a predictive txt sort of option, start typing wal and all the wall options appear. just a thought

Moult

@Nigel I don't actually know how to build that in the Blender interface. Perhaps @Gorgious or @stephen_l might know?

Gorgious

V2.91 introduced Fuzzy search but it doesn't seem it's available in UILists... Might have to dig around to find out how to take advantage of it but I suspect it's hardcoded to builtin templates.
However UIList search field in its default state could suffice for the time being ?

stephen_l

You may iterate the enum porperties items and perform a regexp based matching ?

for i, item in enumerate(datablock.bl_rna.properties[attr].enum_items):
    item.name

Moult

Yes - both works, but I just can't see a slick interface when assigning. I've found that in practice, within a particular discipline, I only ever use the same 5-10 classes again and again and ignore the rest, so I'm not sure how much of a value add it is.